


Radio Chatter

by WinterDreams



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Character Death Fix, Doyle Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Gen, Kimball misuses and abuses the radios, M/M, Self-Indulgent, actually though don't apply science to this, alien technology is the solution to everything, just feels and denial of death everywhere, there is none
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 08:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4515705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterDreams/pseuds/WinterDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Kimball stays on the line and doesn’t switch onto the one everyone else is using. She doesn’t say anything, just listens to the sound of a dead man’s radio. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(A Doyle lives AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radio Chatter

“Doyle.”

They’ve all split into their own groups now that the plan is in place and they are preparing to move out. Sarge stands with his men, not a single flicker of uncertainty in his confident body posture. He has never lost one of the Reds, not permanently, and so Kimball understands to some degree why he simply assumes this will be like every other time before. His men are more nervous, especially Simmons, but Grif stands so close to him, anybody who attacked in that moment would have to go through the Hawai’ian man first.

Wash and Carolina are speaking with the Blues, Wash’s whole body tilted towards Tucker and Tucker’s towards his, just as they always are whenever the two are in the same room together. Kimball doesn’t even think either of them notice they’re doing it, or maybe they have and simply haven’t bothered to make anything public.

Caboose hangs off of Carolina and Epsilon’s words, not a shred of worry in his cheerful voice. Doc stands beside him, and Donut at his side as his choice of words makes everyone stumble for a second.

Kimball wants to memorize all of them as they are in that moment before anything else can touch them. But Carolina and Wash are starting to turn away, and the others drifting toward the exit as their plan begins to speed them down the course they’ve set.

Doyle comes over at the sound of her voice, and Kimball impatiently holds out an object for him to take. It doesn’t look like anything more than a flat, white disk the size of a pancake. The metal shines in the dim light, and Doyle takes it after a moment of hesitation.

“Alien tech,” she tells him. “Supposed to be some sort of defensive weapon. We haven’t really tested it out yet, but you might as well take it.”

“Right,” Doyle says, and tucks it into one of his armour’s slots. He sounds confused instead of the usual defensive, haughty or scared tone she’s used to. “Why not take it yourself?”

“You’re arguing _against_ something that’s supposed to protect you?”

Carolina and Wash are heading back over, calling for Doyle to join the others who will be evacuating right away. Gunfire can be heard outside of the room they stand in, and Kimball takes a deep breath to push down the ire Doyle has managed to trigger within seconds of speaking.

“Because you’re the one with the goddamn sword,” she snaps at him. “Which means you need all the protection you can get, especially when you can’t take care of yourself like Tucker’s proven he can.”

A part of her whispers that a large factor in Tucker’s survival has been luck, and Doyle has been lucky enough to survive the civil war, but she ignores that inner voice. Then Wash and Carolina are beside them, and Doyle has no time to reply. He doesn’t even have the time to thank her, nor she wish him good luck, before they are being pushed into their separate positions by the others.

***

They survive the bomb blast.

They survive the ensuing crash from the bomb blast and Kimball wants to scream even louder than she had screamed at Doyle over the radio, but instead she sits silently in the pelican as the others shout around her. They are trying to figure out if everyone is okay, trying to figure out where they are and where everyone else is, but all Kimball can hear is the static on Doyle’s line. The private one that Washington set up, the one everyone else switched off of once they got onto the pelican at Carolina’s orders.

“There’s no point,” Carolina had told Kimball as she pushed her into a pelican seat. Her voice had been the softest Kimball had yet to hear from the woman. “And you won’t want to hear anything that might get through.”

But Kimball stays on the line and doesn’t switch onto the one everyone else is using. She doesn’t say anything, just listens to the sound of a dead man’s radio. Not until Carolina grips her shoulder and Washington stands right in front of her does she stop listening. Then she switches over to the group one they have set up, and their loud voices scrape at her ears.

“–need to move,” Carolina says, and she tugs at Kimball’s elbow much like she had to get Kimball onto the pelican. Kimball stands and sways, and everyone looks to her.

“Lopez and I might be able to fix the pelican,” Simmons offers, and Wash nods.

Kimball hugs herself, cold in a way that has nothing to do with her armour malfunctioning amidst the snowy mountain slopes.

“We need to try and contact the others,” Washington tells them.  

He starts speaking the lieutenants’ names, asking for the Feds to respond, and Carolina says Kimball’s name. Kimball listens to Washington’s plea for people to answer and feels something like relief prickle her when the voices of her people respond, but the relief is buried beneath all the heavy sentiments Doyle’s actions have created.

The New Republic soldiers ask for her, ask for reassurance, and she responds as best she can.

Her own voice raised in a shout against Doyle and the words he’d flung back at her become the internal undercurrent beneath all of the conversations she has in the next few hours.

***

“Might if I sit here?” Kimball doesn’t look up at the sound of Carolina’s voice from where she rests against a stone wall. She doesn’t nod her head either, but after a few seconds, the Freelancer sits down regardless.

They are waiting for everyone else to arrive at the rendezvous point. The place they’ve set up as the rendezvous point is an underground cavern much like the ones the New Republic used to live in before they moved to Armonia, and the thought makes bitter laughter claw at Kimball’s throat.

There are some holes in the cavern rooftop above that let in some sunlight, and the others have set up some lights from the supplies that had been on the pelicans when they evacuated. Everyone moves constantly from the pools of light to the deeper shadows and back again.

In a few minutes, she will need to check in with all the soldiers of the New Republic. In a few minutes, she will need to tell Doyle’s men that he is dead. That she is their only leader now and they need to figure out if Felix and Locus are still alive. Kimball knows Carolina and Washington were discussing getting to the Temple of Communication while the pirates are still suffering from the surprise bomb. Kimball knows she will need to weigh in, to strategize, to plan, to become a leader again.

Before that, though, she just wants to sit through the shock of yet one more death just like any other grieving person might.

Of course, other grieving people probably don’t clench their fists so hard in their fury, they think they are going to squeeze right through their armoured gloves. Other people probably have to control their breathing to keep sobs from escaping their lips, rather than shouted curses at the deceased. Other people probably don’t scream _damn you to hell_ in their mind over and over and over–

“You know,” Carolina’s voice interrupts Kimball’s thoughts, but she doesn’t look up. “When I was in Project Freelancer, I was the top agent for a long time. And then Agent Texas showed up.”

That piques the smallest bits of Kimball’s curiosity, for she has rarely heard either Carolina or Wash speak of those who used to be in the Project with them.

“I hated her,” Carolina says, and Kimball can hear the cracks in Carolina’s normal composure.

When Kimball glances over, the holographic form of Epsilon is nowhere to be seen, as if the AI wanted to give the two women privacy. “She was always faster and stronger, and nothing I seemed to do helped me catch up to her. I thought she was laughing at me, I thought she wanted to win just as badly as I did–”

Carolina exhales. “And then she died. When I was still raging at her and trying to be better and come up with all of the ways I could beat her, she died. And then later Epsilon told me that she had liked me all along, that she had wanted to save me, and she died thinking she failed me.”

Carolina falls quiet and Kimball says nothing. Just when the silence becomes too much and Kimball dredges up the barest layer of coherency to her thoughts, Carolina says,

“You can be angry at them and sad at the same time, Kimball. It doesn’t make you any worse of a person than the rest of us.”

Any coherency Kimball’s managed to inject into her thoughts flees, but Carolina doesn’t seem to expect a response. She knows how hard it is to keep sentiments that are constantly biting at each other from spilling outward, let alone force words through the inner wreckage left behind.

“You figure out what you’re going to tell the Feds yet?” Carolina asks a moment later, and that drags a few notes of hysterical laughter from Kimball’s lips. She shakes her head.

“Not a single fucking clue.”

Carolina nods and then grips Kimball’s shoulder as she climbs to her feet.

“Whatever you say, Wash, me, and the others are all with you. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

Kimball watches her go, and then turns her gaze away from all the others who glance over at her. Her few minutes are almost up.

Kimball switches her radio to Doyle’s line. Static greets her once more, and she wonders how much time has passed since the explosion. A few hours at most, for the sun hasn’t even set yet.

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” she says into the line. Her voice cracks, composure flaking off with each new word like rust from metal. “I told you not to do it. I told you to _stop_.”

She lifts a hand to her helmet and drags the gloved hand over the surface like she’s pushing fingers through her hair. Whenever she got back to her room after a fight with Doyle, she took off her helmet and did that motion so much she grew worried she would rip all of her hair out after a few months.

She supposes she no longer has to worry about that, but the thought is galaxies away from the realm of comforting.

“And now I have to go tell _your_ goddamn army that you’re dead,” Kimball continues to speak into the unresponsive line. “Because you might have spouted all that shit about believing in me and believing that I can lead them, but we both know we haven’t ever been one army. Just two armies barely even bothering to pretend they were united while their two leaders couldn’t stop arguing with each other long enough to take a breath.”

She glances up and sees Washington going over to Doctor Grey. The woman looks around the cavern, no doubt for Doyle, though she stops when Washington reaches her. Her gaze falls briefly on Kimball, and Kimball can feel the accusation burning her skin from several feet away and through two sets of armour.

“ _Damn it_ , Doyle,” she says.

_“Goddamn it, Doyle, stop!”_

She can feel liquid eating away all of her insides, but nothing reaches her eyes yet. “Why couldn’t you just keep being the coward I thought you were?”

No voices drift over the radio line to grant her any answers, and she knows she cannot stay within her own bubble any longer. She waits a second longer before she switches over to the group channel. Then she takes a deep breath and heads over to the gathered survivors.

***             

Shouting. Disbelief. Name calling. Swearing. Threats. Accusations. Pointed weapons. None of those reactions surprise Kimball when she gives them the news of Doyle’s death.

Her apology surprises them, though. Shocks them into silence long enough for her to explain clearly what happened and tell them they can’t let his sacrifice go to waste by arguing with each other. They need to use his actions for inspiration and to help them plan the final blow against the pirates who created a situation where Doyle needed to die.

This doesn’t stop everyone from yelling again after she’s finished, of course. But nobody gets shot and after she speaks with everyone as a group until her voice is hoarse, Doctor Grey speaks directly to her. Her voice rises above everyone else’s and the Feds all fall quiet and then look to her as they would an authority figure they respect.

“You said it was his choice?” she asks, and they can all hear the waver in her voice.

“Yes,” Kimball says. “We tried to come up with another plan but he shut us down.”

“And he believed in you?”

Washington and Carolina had told everyone that. Kimball had been unable to get the words past her tight throat at the memory of his voice when he spoke them, but she forces herself to speak now.

“Yes.”

Doctor Grey nods, and all of the Feds and New Republic watch her when she takes a step toward Kimball.

“Then I believe in you.”

It isn’t that simple, of course. Kimball has learned nothing in war is ever simple, and that extends to leading people during war. But Doctor Grey’s words help. The Freelancers help. The Reds and the Blues help. Eventually, they reach a point where everyone is willing to take an hour’s respite and come back again in the hopes of creating a mutually agreed upon plan. In the meantime, they all move deeper into the cave for shelter. Carolina moves to watch the Feds with Sarge and Doctor Grey, while Washington falls into step at Kimball’s side. The man is almost as paranoid as her about getting shot, but he doesn’t try to make Kimball speak.

She doesn’t try to speak to him either. Instead she opens up the line to Doyle, and listens for a few seconds.

_“But I’m rubbish as a leader, and even worse as a soldier.”_

“You said you failed at being a leader, and I said it too,” she says into the static. “But you know, none of your men think that. And now I’m not convinced it’s just because they’re all as idiotic as you, and I don’t think anyone would ever call Doctor Grey dumb. They’re loyal, and I want to say it’s because they’re like rabid dogs who are leashed to a broken house, but you are– _were_ more than a broken political system they attached themselves to.

They really did like you, failure of a leader or not.”

She falls quiet for a few seconds and they reach the section where people have begun to set up quarters.

“I’m still pissed as fuck at you.”

***

Darkness has come but a new day hasn’t even dawned before they’ve come up with a plan. They all sleep, and in the morning they review the plan with the light of day to expose any holes in their strategy. They patch them up as best they can, and a lot of people continue to call Kimball a bitch under their breath, but they are all feeling the pressure of time with Armonia gone.

“I’m sorry if I get them all killed,” Kimball says over the radio on Doyle’s line when she has a few seconds to herself.

She stands right at the edge of the cavern, still within the shadows so nobody from the outside can see her, but close enough to the entrance that stretching her arm out will have the tips of her fingers in the brilliant sunlight. “I still want to kill them myself, but I don’t want any of the mercs to get them.”

The bitter laughter she’s been holding in for a full night now finally escapes. “I guess you fucking taught me that one.”

She leans against the jagged cavern wall, and glances over her shoulder. Some people are in sight rushing about their preparations, but nobody calls for her over the public channel. Washington had suggested she go catch a breath for a few minutes after her fingers had gone from occasionally drifting to the butt of her gun, to resting fully on the object.

“I don’t know if they believe my apology,” she says. “Probably because I keep yelling at them. Not nearly as much as I yelled at you, because you still manage to be the most stubborn, frustrating person I have ever met. But they think I yell too much, and Carolina and Wash seem to think I’m not yelling as much as I should be given what happened.”

Kimball falls quiet and listens to the static. When she first heard the sound on the pelican, the noise made her want to scream until she heard something else rise about it. The crackling made her think of a gaping emptiness consuming everything till all that remained were the ghostly whispers of something once bright and unending.

Now the noise comforts her. White noise to block out all the other sounds of life that grate against her abused ears. Something to talk into that can’t hurl her words back at her and leave her doubting every syllable that leaves her mouth. She always did daily audio reports, but she forced herself to keep those as professional as she could so any successors wouldn’t have to filter through her personal grumblings to reach the important tidbits to help them carry on the fight.

_“When you die, you had better be damn sure that those you leave behind can carry on without you. I know I am.”_

Kimball sighs and doesn’t let herself consider that maybe there’s a little bit of hope mixed in with everything else.

“But I guess yelling never did do anything with you, so why should it work on them?”

***

They go through with Epsilon’s plan. Not many of them are happy with it, but then again, all of them are still upset over Armonia, so saddened resignation over a plan is hardly anything new for them. No time is wasted, the attack carried out a day after Armonia has been destroyed.

“We’re putting the home building on hold for a bit,” Kimball says into Doyle’s line right before the attack as she watches the others double-check their ammo. Her gun is a comforting weight in her hands, and she tries not to think about how useless it had been at the end of the attack on Armonia. “But it _will_ happen.”

Then she switches back to the group line and tries to give a last few words of encouragement for all of them. She tells them this is for those who had died years past in the real civil war, for those who became byproducts of Felix and Locus’ lies, for those who died in the fighting in Armonia, and for Doyle and the bravery he chose to show despite his fear. For their friends, family, and home. Her words are echoed by Doctor Grey who has taken on the role of helping to keep peace from within the Feds despite all the friends she has already lost.

Then for a long hour there is no more time for sentimental words except those given to those dying in the heat of battle.

But they work together. All of them; Feds, New Republic, Blues, Reds, and Freelancers. Not just fighting on the same side, but coordinating and helping each other, a jumble of different sized cogs that finally help the machine run smoothly rather than whine and stall it.

And somehow, they not only survive, they win. They get a message out and send the pirates retreating permanently. They shoot a bullet through Locus’ head, and Kimball is there when Tucker stabs Felix through the chest. She stands over him as the life bleeds out of him and she feels the old betrayal surge inside her. The victory doesn’t temper it as much as she thought it would, but the grief does, and she can feel exhaustion biting at the heel of the satisfaction pouring through her.

There is no time to give in to any fatigue, though. There are the wounded and dead to attend to, and the Temple of Communication to keep defending until someone can send a message back. There are the tractor beams to take care of and an endless list of other things that makes Kimball’s head hurt. But she’s used to the headaches, used to powering through. And if she lets the static play in the back of her helmet as a soothing contrast to all the other demands, nobody has to know.

“We won,” she says when she has a brief moment as Doctor Grey and Carolina head toward her. No time for ramblings, but she figures wherever Doyle is, he would want to know his death meant something. “We lost a lot of people, but a lot of the Feds lived, too. Doctor Grey, too. All the Feds–the people you cared about are okay.”

She turns her attention back to the living, breathing a little easier with the victory confirmed by spoken words, even if they were only to the ghost of the man who should have been co-leading the attack.

“Thank you,” Doctor Grey says in between patching up the endless number of wounded soldiers when Kimball stops in to see her an hour after the woman gave her the last update. She looks up briefly from a man’s cut shoulder. “I understand now why General Doyle admired you so much, even if he spent half the time ranting about your stubbornness. How’s your arm?”

“It’s fine,” Kimball says, barely stopping herself from clutching at the spot where a bullet had nestled itself in the heat of the battle. Her armour’s healing unit kicked in fast, and she’s been relying on it until one of the medics isn’t dealing with someone with life-threatening injuries. “How–”

“Doctor, remember?” Doctor Grey says cheerfully, and she seems to finish sealing the man’s wound. “I’m trained to detect signs of pain and all other forms of sickness! You’re better than General Doyle at hiding it–”

“He fainted,” Kimball interrupts. “I would _hope_ I’m better at hiding it than that.”

“Well, yes, but I meant when he _didn’t_ immediately faint and tried to act like the rest of you idiotic soldiers pretending pain doesn’t affect you. So anyways, you’re certainly better than him, but you’re not perfect. And you both think you’re better at it than you actually are, which only makes it more fun for me when I catch you!”

Her tone takes on a slightly maniacal note that reminds Kimball of a killer catching its target, but the sudden realization that Doctor Grey spoke of Doyle in the present tense stops Kimball from arguing back.

“Right,” she says instead, and then clears her throat. “Well, it’s okay right now. My healing unit is helping and it’s not very deep and it didn’t hit anything vital. I don’t want to bother you when there’s others who would die without your attention.”

“Hmm,” Doctor Grey just hums, but Kimball thinks she hears the slightest hints of approval. “Just be sure to come check in with me before you _do_ faint. I promise not to remove your arm unless I absolutely have to or you give me permission.”

“Er,” Kimball says, and then decides to not comment. “Thank you, Doctor Grey.”

“Emily,” Doctor Grey replies, voice dropping into a sincerity that makes Kimball’s throat tighten. “You can just call me Emily. I figure we’ll know each other as long as General Doyle and I did soon enough, and I really am grateful for what you did.”

“I–well, okay, Emily. I was just doing what I had to.”

Emily points one of her tool’s at the man’s shoulder and Kimball can only guess she’s adding antibiotics to the wound. “Thank you for believing in me.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Emily replies. “Well, once I stopped thinking about all the fighting and shouting that happened before this.”

“A lot of people do find that hard.”

“Yup,” Emily says, and the cheer has returned to her voice. “But that’s because our IQs aren’t the only thing that determines how we act, as helpful as that would be for me.”

Kimball leaves her a few moments later. She goes from person to person, lieutenant to lieutenant, as she gets an update from each one. The Temple of Communication rests on a mountain slope that leads down into a picturesque valley. Beautiful, but not very good for shelter. They have the high ground at least, and the armies have already sought out mounds of rocks that can be used for protection and any caves within the mountains. While the Temple of Communication can provide protection, none of them want to be trapped inside if another attack hits.

A river runs by the foot of the mountain, a clean one for once, and the sight had caused Jensen to comment that they at least wouldn’t have to worry about hydration while they figure out their next plan of action.

Most of their transportation has survived the attack according to Jensen and Simmons. Kimball assumes Lopez gave a similar report despite her inability understand a single word of Spanish. There are cities and abandoned outposts they can move to if need be, and the information that they have the needed vehicles to do so helps buoy Kimball’s mood even as her gaze keeps turning to the sky to look for any further attacks.

 _“Do you know what_ your _problem is, Vanessa? You’re far too eager to die for your beliefs.”_

“You understood part of it,” she says over the line connected to Doyle.

The realization that he had managed to understand at least a part of her has been there since their argument before the attack on Armonia, but has had no chance to slip from her unconscious to the conscious. Now, as she bustles from person to person while the look-outs consistently say everything is all clear, the thought worms its way into the front sectors of her mind and refuses to leave.

She has been fighting for years, ever since the government betrayed her and even before that. As a child, a teenager, and finally an adult, she has always been fighting for the beliefs she grew into. She argued with her classmates, her teachers, and her parents; not out of any vindictive spite, but simply because of who she is. Everyone who was close to her knew that, loved or hated her for it, and when the government betrayed them all, her verbal fighting and the occasional physical one simply shifted into the more vicious kind the situation called for.  

She’s been fighting for so long, she no longer knows how to stop, and she hates that Doyle managed to grasp that in his last hours. No longer because she hates the man himself, but because it forces her to think about the positive bond they might have reached if he hadn’t gotten himself killed. If he took time to realize it wasn’t just her personality that spurred her to fight every word he said, but also all the trust that has been stolen from her year after year. First when the government broke her trust so completely she joined the New Republic, and then all those times they were promised the possibility of a truce only to have their leaders killed.

But none of that compares to the betrayal of one they once called ally, and the revelation about Felix’s true nature stole any remaining trust Kimball kept carefully guarded within her. If Doyle lived long enough to realize that, and finally proved to her that he really could overcome his cowardice without dying–

She wants to shove those thoughts away but even all the tasks she still has left to do cannot steal those thoughts from her mind permanently. Like polluted water, they seep into her grey matter and then sink into all her organs and nerves until every part of her aches with the possibility of what could have been.

When she finally has another moment to breathe it’s immediately after Emily has attended to her arm, and colours streak the sky above them like a whimsical painting. Kimball stands on the slope alone and stares up at all the varying shades while she tries to breathe normally. They are low enough on the mountain slope that the air is still warm, not that she can feel it in her armour. And even if the air is breathable, she cannot risk being out of contact of her radio.

The public channel on mute in the background and ready to beep at her if someone needs her, Kimball switches to the private one with Doyle briefly. All the thoughts from earlier build to an unstoppable crescendo inside her until she feels as close to screaming as she did in the pelican after that bomb blast.

“Goddamn it, Doyle,” she says, because apparently swearing at him is something even death cannot stop. Especially not death. She wants to sit down to do this, but she knows as soon as she stops standing, it will take all her willpower to get up again. “I should be shouting this at you, not talking to a fucking unresponsive radio line. I was talking to Doct–Emily. I was talking to Emily, as she insists I call her. According to her, we both suck at hiding our injuries, which I still disagree with because you fucking fainted but–”

She shifts and stares out at the empty valley, bits of colour popping through the long grass. “I’m tired. And I was thinking about everything even though all the blood and attacks we still have to do and figuring out shelter and literally _everything else_ should have been distracting me. But it didn’t, and now I can’t stop thinking that maybe there really was hope. That if you had lived, if you took a bullet instead of a goddamn bomb for us–who knows what we could have been.”

The words ring in her head and echo inside her helmet with the static as the constant background noise. Seconds tick by, and she lets one sigh escape her before she turns her attention to the beeping public channel.

“Well,” a voice says, and the voice is so weak Kimball almost misses it. “I admit, I wouldn’t have been averse to kissing you.”

The understanding that the voice isn’t coming from the public channel takes a second to bloom in Kimball, but as soon as the first grains of understanding tickle her brain, a floodgate opens inside her.

She goes completely still, and all her breath punches out of her as her mind matches the voice with one she thought forever confined to memory only.

“Doyle?” she shouts, and the volume of her own voice makes her wince. “You–what–what the _fuck_?”

“Er, you’re not going crazy, if that’s what you think?” Doyle offers, and Kimball simultaneously wants to scream at him and at everyone else. “I am somehow alive.”

“Somehow? Somehow? What do you mean, _somehow_? Where are you? How long have you been conscious? How long have you been fucking listening to this and not fucking responding to–”

“I assure you, this is the first time I’ve been able to,” Doyle cuts her off hastily. “I thought I heard you before but I’ve been in and out of it quite a bit, I’m afraid, and I was trying to crawl to cover at one point. At least I think I was. It’s hard to tell how much progress I’ve made when I feel so faint.”

His voice does make it sound like he’s about to pass out, constantly falling from normal conversational volume to a whisper.

“Where are you?” Kimball asks, forcing herself to focus on the important facts and not how much more she wants to sit down now. “And how injured are you?”

“Still in what’s left of Armonia by the reactor core. I can’t really tell–most everything hurts and my suit isn’t telling me much, but I haven’t bled out yet or been killed by the radiation.”

“How is that?” Kimball questions as she turns and begins running back to the others at the camp.

“What makes you think I know? The only thing I can think of is that piece of alien technology you gave me–”

“That small thing protected you from a nuclear _explosion_?”

“I told you, I don’t know!” He almost shouts it, and Kimball wonders if they’ve broken a record in how quickly they’ve started yelling at each other. “I’m just guessing because there’s certainly nothing else on me that I know could have done it and I am absolutely _covered_ in sticky blue plasma or- _something_.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Honestly, I’m hardly an expert on this and–wait, what?” Kimball spots Washington and Tucker just as Doyle’s voice grinds to a surprised halt. “You–okay?”

“I believe you,” Kimball says, and the words are easier to say than she ever imagined them to be. Sincerity weighs down her voice, and Doyle is so quiet for a moment, she thinks he has passed out.

“Oh,” Doyle says a moment later, and she skids to a halt in front of a startled Washington and Tucker.

“You believed in me,” she reminds him, and then shoves away her sentiment as she takes a deep breath. The brisk tone she usually forces into her voice returns, and she tells him she’s switching over to a public channel to inform the others and get help.

The others don’t believe her for a moment, not even switching channels to check until she’s close to punching one of them. It’s Tucker who switches first and then he’s swearing at the top of his lungs, and grabbing at Wash’s arm. After that, everyone believes her pretty quickly.

The Feds are ready to send whatever vehicle they need to retrieve him, radiation be damned. Emily points out their suits can handle the radiation, and they have lots of equipment to deal with any nuclear fall-out or radiation poisoning since their capital was built around a nuclear reactor. Carolina reminds them that even if they can deal with the radiation, there are still mercs everywhere. But in the end, none of them want to just leave Doyle to die after the miracle they’ve been gifted.

Washington warns them all it could just be a trap, and Kimball is forbidden from going. Carolina as well, because she’s the more valuable Freelancer according to Washington. Tucker looks ready to tear into him for that, judging by the way he crosses his arms and shifts on the balls of his feet. Kimball rests a hand on Tucker’s shoulder before he can say anything and he glances at her before relaxing slightly. When it’s time for the retrieval team to leave, though, he stalks off with them to get in a few more words.

Everyone else returns to fortifying their temporary camp and Emily hurries to prepare for Doyle’s arrival within the small rock outcropping she’s established as her medical headquarters. If Kimball found the woman cheerful before, it is nothing compared to the quick tone she speaks in now and the energy that flings the woman in a blur from place to place. Kimball checks in with each of her lieutenants and they all follow her when she goes to wait with Emily for Doyle’s arrival. Tucker and the rest of the Reds and Blues join them, followed by Carolina a few minutes later. Carolina sits by Kimball, but doesn’t say much, and Kimball hopes they didn’t just send Carolina’s remaining Freelancer teammate right into a death trap after everything else they survived.

All of them know it will take hours, yet none of them mention anything about sleeping beyond the minutes they snag as they rest on the grass while the sky darkens around them.

When they finally hear the pelican returning, they all shoot to their feet. The look-outs start chattering over the radio that it’s the one they sent out best as they can tell. Still, nobody moves out from the rock outcroppings they’ve all hidden among.

“This is Agent Washington,” Washington’s voice crackles over the radio a second later and they all hold their breath. “Doyle is on board with us, no casualties. He’s unconscious, but not in immediate danger as far as the medic can tell.”

Everyone but Emily slumps in relief. She stands even taller and tells them to hurry and let her make the diagnosis.

The rest of the night is another blur of activity before the eventual crash. Emily assures Kimball she’ll let her know when Doyle is conscious again, which happens to be only four hours later when the sun is rising again on a new day. Only those on guard duty are also up, and they wave at Kimball as she stumbles through the camp. Even some of the Feds offer her a warm greeting, and she forces herself to respond in the same manner once she moves past her initial shock.

Doyle is already sitting up when she reaches the shelter of the rock outcropping furthest from the base of Temple of Communication that Emily has turned into her medical headquarters.

“–not anywhere near as cool as being able to move things with your mind,” Emily is saying to Doyle when Kimball arrives, and Kimball blinks at both of them. “So–oh, General Kimball, there you are! Well, despite the burns and external bleeding caused from the blast that the alien tech couldn’t stop, General Doyle is doing much better than anyone who experienced a nuclear explosion has any right to be!”

“That’s good,” Kimball says, glancing between the two.

Doyle looks like he’s trying to sink into the rock he’s sitting against, his armour dented and scraped in too many places to count. Dark blue stains and strands of what looks like sky blue spiderwebs drape across him. Yet the armour and he remain intact, and he looks up at her from beneath his helmet when her gaze flickers to him.

“Yes, now if you two will excuse me, I _really_ want to actually examine what remains of this alien technology. Call me if you start coughing up blood or feel faint!”

“Thank you, Emily,” Doyle tells her weakly, and she moves out from rocks with a wave.

The two Generals fall quiet after her departure and Kimball towers above him.

“You must be exhausted too,” Doyle says after a moment, and tilts his hand toward the patch of grass beside him.

Kimball only hesitates a second before sitting right beside him and leaning back against the same rock. They stare out at the horizon in comfortable silence for a long while until Doyle finally says,

“So, what exactly did you mean when you asked me how much I had been listening to without responding?”

Kimball feels her cheeks heat at the question, and she’s grateful he can’t actually see her face.

“What exactly did you mean when you said you wouldn’t have been averse to kissing?” she shoots back, and she imagines he’s the one flushing now as he attempts to stammer out an answer.

“Oh, and if the two of you start shouting at each other, I will taser you both!” Emily’s shout interrupts their flustered attempts to answer.

They glance at each other, and Kimball can hear the hesitant smile in Doyle’s voice when he says to her,

“Shouting is certainly the last thing I feel like doing right now.”

**Author's Note:**

> So guess who sobbed through the entire death scene last episode??  
> I fell in love with Kimball and Doyle's dynamic and all they could be two weeks before he died, so obviously the only solution was to write an AU where he survives, science be damned.  
> Thank you to my amazing beta, babbyspanch!!  
> I hope you all liked it!


End file.
